


i'm afraid we've only got earth fish here

by suitablyskippy



Category: Tsuritama
Genre: Culture Shock, Gen, Mind Control, boundless energy; unremitting enthusiasm; constant excitement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 15:10:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitablyskippy/pseuds/suitablyskippy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Coco! Where next?”</p><p>
  <i>Brother, did you even read the guidebook?</i>
</p><p>“The – bits – about – fishing!” Haru says, timing his words to the beat of his march. “And cars! They don’t run on water, and humans are in charge of them! And I know that humans aren’t properly waterproof, and about bread, and what shoelaces do! But maaainly – fishing! Fish fish fish fish <i>fishing</i>! Coco, Cococo-chan, can we try fishing yet?”</p><p>(Haru's first day in Enoshima is also his first day on Earth, but he's not the kind of overenthusiastic fish alien who'd ever let complete bewilderment hold him back.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm afraid we've only got earth fish here

_You’re gonna press that button._

“Button?”

 _The glowing circle. Right in front of you._

“Ummm,” says Haru, who is swaying from the passenger rail along the roof of the carriage with one hand, propping the fishbowl on his head with the other, and he swings round to examine it. Water sloshes. “What’s where, Coco?”

 _The button right there, brother. Riiight there. That’s what you press to open the door. That’s how we’re gonna get out._

Haru considers the button for a moment but it’s not doing much, except for glowing, so he considers the gentleman seated beside it instead, trundling along with his back to their carriage’s window in a white shirt with a long flat piece of stripy fabric hanging down the front of it. “I like that!” Haru announces, and the fishbowl slips so he skids sideways and jerks his head to balance it, and waves enthusiastically at the gentleman’s long flat piece of stripy fabric. “It’s good to be colourful!”

_Okay, this is our stop._

The gentleman looks up at him from behind spectacles squarer than Coco’s. “Thank you,” he says, and Haru beams at his new friend: who, after a moment, smoothes down his tie and adds, “I do rather agree.”

_It’s our stop, I said! Haru, I’m warning you –_

The train jolts to a halt. The fishbowl goes flying. Haru hurls himself after it with a yell and a jump and one perilous pirouette round the shiny orange shoes of a young lady who looks up at him in startlement and he’s got it back, the cold glass, Coco splashing ominously within. He holds it up to eyelevel and she sends a disgruntled flourish all down the ruffles of her fins. _I’m gonna transform and press that button myself if you don’t do it right this minute._

“Ah, Coco, sorry sorry!” He hits it. There’s a _whoosh_. Humans are jostling all around each other on the station platform. He plops the fishbowl back down onto his head and seizes the straps of his backpack and jumps across the gap toward them, and – “Good _mor_ ning! Hi! _Go-o-o-od_ morning! Hello, mister! – hey-ey- _ey_!” – makes at least a _dozen_ new human friends before he’s even out the station, on the street, in the dry warm sea-smelling Enoshima air. 

Cars! Great big noisy cars, grumbling down the road, gleaming so brightly in the sun he shields his eyes! A raised strip of concrete runs alongside the road, and it isn’t as _wide_ as the road but it doesn’t have any cars on it, and it _does_ have humans on it – all sorts of different humans, with all sorts of interesting colours on their clothes! – so Haru clutches onto the fishbowl and marches his way along beside them. 

“Coco! Where next?”

_Brother, did you even read the guidebook?_

“The – bits – about – fishing!” Haru says, timing his words to his march. Planet Earth is so _warm_! And busy! And almost everyone he waves at smiles back at him, so he keeps on waving and his grin gets bigger till his eyes are creasing up in joy. “And cars! They don’t run on water, and humans are in charge of them! And I know that humans aren’t properly waterproof, and about bread, and what shoelaces do! But maaainly – fishing! Fish fish fish fish _fishing_! Coco, Cococo-chan, can we try fishing yet?”

 _The town centre_ , says Coco. _Let’s go to the town centre, and let’s take it from there._

“Wait!”

_What?_

“Ummm,” says Haru, and stops still where he stands. “Um um um um. Coco, I can feel fish!”

_Enoshima’s on the sea, and the sea’s one of the only places fish live on Earth – that’s why Urara came here. That’s why we’re here. Haru, did you open your guidebook at all before we left, or am I going to be the only one with even the slightest –_

“Abouuuut _turn_!” 

The umbrella tucked underneath the flap of Haru’s backpack smacks someone when he spins round and he apologises, profusely, and drops into a dramatic bow that’s partly a result of diagrams he caught while flicking through the guidebook and partly a result of his sudden interest in finding out just how well he can balance the fishbowl hands-free. 

“Don’t worry about it,” says the human, and laughs. “You just be careful what you’re doing, kid.”

“Fishing!” says Haru, jittering in excitement at the thought. “I’m gonna do a _ton_ of fishing!” 

 

\---

 

A lady inside the AQUARIUM – big black characters painted on the front wall of the building, and the building feels so much like fish Haru can almost _hear_ them – but he can’t, of course, not these silent Earth fish! Just that they’re there, he _knows_ they’re in there – a lady inside the AQUARIUM sitting at a hole in a squat glass booth a bit like a human-sized fishtank smiles at him when he slaps his hands to her desk and demands to know if there are fish here. 

“An _awful_ lot of fish,” she says. “Two hundred and fifty-three different varieties, in fact! From all around the world.” 

“Do you have any from _other_ worlds?” says Haru, and then, by way of explanation: “I’m Haru! I’m an alien!”

“You are, are you?”

“Mmmmmm- _hm_!”

“Well, I’m very sorry, Mister Alien, but I’m afraid we’ve only got Earth fish here.”

“All right,” Haru concedes. “Can I have a look at them?”

“That’ll be six hundred and forty yen, please.”

“Huh?”

_You need to pay to get in._

“Pay what?”

_Money. It’s what they use to get things on Earth – you have to have money, then you swap it for things._

“Do _we_ have any?”

_You have to get it with a job. You go to a job, and you do work, and you get money, and you swap it for things._

“I don’t wanna work!” Haru announces, and the lady in the booth watches him with a curious smile. “I’m – um, umm… which way are the fish?” 

“You just follow the corridor round,” says the lady. “They shouldn’t be too tricky to find, even for an alien.”

Haru flips his water gun to his hand from its holster with a theatrical spin he spent most of the journey to Earth practising. “Papapa _pa_ –” he cries, and on the other side of her desk the lady in the booth sputters in surprise and goes still. Water drips from her strange dark human eyelashes. 

“I’m gonna look at the fish without doing work! Thank you! I like the colour of the ends of your fingers!”

_Fingernails._

“Fingernails!” 

His newest friend turns her hands toward herself and studies her fingernails with a distant, dreamy smile. 

“See you soon!” he yells, already zigzagging his way backward across the smooth green floor of the AQUARIUM, and then he turns and races for the end of the corridor, both hands clutching the cold glass of Coco’s fishbowl as she and her water slop about inside. “Fish fish fish fish fish fish –”

 _You know what I remember? I remember I asked before we even left if you’d read the guidebook and you said oh, sure, Coco, I know e-e-everything I need to, I won’t be any trouble to you, I’m all prepared for Earth. _

“– fish fish fish fish fish –”

_You’re unbelievable, brother. I should just send you back._

“– fish fish fiiiish –”

 

\---

 

“I want it on _me_.”

_You can’t have it on you._

“Bo-o-oring,” he sing-songs, and kicks his feet in the water. The sunlight across it shatters and glitters and joins back up again, little baby wavelets rippling and glimmering all the way out as far as he can see, to where the big blue human sky meets the big blue human ocean – which isn’t actually all that big, not compared to home, not really. “I wanna swap with him!”

_Humans can’t just swap their hair. Imagine if we tried to swap fins, okay? That’s how it is for humans too._

“Pffbrhhbr,” says Haru, and then he puts his tongue back inside his mouth and says, “Yuki probably _loves_ fish.”

 _Yeah. Maybe. He looked kind of grouchy._

“He wouldn’t look grouchy if he was fishing!”

_Let’s get going, shall we?_

Haru blows another raspberry. Blowing raspberries is probably the best thing about being a human so far, apart from having this – many – _limbs_! He puts them all into action at once and ends up on his feet by luck as much as skill, reeling backward with one flip-flop on and one flip-flopping off, his black school trousers rolled up to his knees but dripping all the same. He swings on his backpack and seizes up the fishbowl from the dockside and pelts for the street, splattering water out behind him, full speed with his war cry at full volume: “Eno _shiiiii_ ma!” Earth is great! Earth is warm and the water feels good! Humans drive past in cars and walk past on feet and Haru hurtles up a hill with his backpack bumping on his back and waves at all of them, and hollers greetings at most of them, and when his voice starts getting wheezy and the inside of his body starts feeling hot he flops down on his stomach in a quiet little area covered in soft green plants – which is _grass_ , and grass is like seaweed if it wasn’t in the sea! – and empties his water gun over his face. 

A young gentleman passes by, wheeling along a sort of open fabric bag with a very tiny human inside. Haru leaps up and grabs at the fishbowl and hurries along beside them, peering inquisitively down at the little squishy-looking human. It holds its toes and puffs out its cheeks, and peers back up at Haru. 

“Did this one just hatch?”

The young gentleman looks from Haru to his baby, and then he looks back to Haru, who’s balancing on one foot, still staring down in fascination, and he smiles. “Hatched two weeks ago.”

“On my planet they usually get bigger later,” Haru says, reassuringly, and the taller and less squishy-looking of his two new friends thanks him for the information. “I’m Haru!” he yells, as he waves goodbye. “I’m an alien! I’ve moved to Enoshima from outer space! I’m living here!”

 _Somewhere._

“Yeah! Hey, hey-ey-ey, Coco! Coco! I’m gonna find a place to live in!”

 _Glad to hear it._

The hill is very long and very steep but in the gaps between the buildings Haru gets flashes of the sea, shining in the warm morning light and packed right up to the sandy edges with busily swarming Earth fish, all probably just as excited to know that Haru’s in town as Haru is to _be_ in town, rocketing up the hill with his arms out wide. 

 

\---

 

Sanada Keito (Keito Keito _Kate_!) has hair like the ocean on an overcast day and when Haru tells her he needs water in his new room she just nods, sympathetically, and asks if it’s an alien thing. 

“Ye-e-ep _yep_! Otherwise I dry out!”

“How about if I run you a bowl from the sink?”

“Sink?” says Haru. 

Kate takes him down the stairs into her nice yellow kitchen and shows him how to get water from the sink, so he shows her how to hop up onto the draining board and wriggle round in exactly the right way to get her head under the tap, if she wanted, and she covers her mouth and laughs so Haru laughs too, sitting on the worksurface, the shoulders of his school blazer turning a darker damper blue as his soaked hair drips. 

Kate runs the tap till she has a round green bowl full of water and then she offers him a slice of cake. 

Haru swings his feet against the cupboards and explains that, being an alien, he doesn’t know what cake is. 

Kate says well, in _that_ case, Haru certainly needs to have a slice of cake, and she takes out a knife and cuts him a piece of springy pale food. It looks a bit like bread. Haru knows about bread. Kate tells him he’s a smart young boy and Haru swings his feet against the cupboards even more enthusiastically, radiating happiness: and a moment later light, as well, when he refills his water gun from the sink and turns it on Kate to demand more cake, his triangular halo glowing above him. 

“Of course,” she says, her eyes a little less focused than they were. The dangly metal bits in her ears shine wetly as she cuts another slice. She wipes her face dry in a paper napkin and Haru swings his feet, and eats his cake, and thinks that Kate might just be his favourite human friend so far. 

 

\---

 

“I got here with a map!”

“Now, I didn’t know aliens had maps,” says Misaki, and Haru bursts out laughing. He’s racing up and down the racks of fishing poles, dragging his hand across them so they rattle in their brackets and their long skinny ends whip and jolt about, and every time he skids around at the end of the racks to race back up the way he’s come his flip-flops squeal on the shiny floor tiles. Misaki’s leaning on the counter with her arms folded, her glossy dark hair pulled up behind her head, watching with a nice human smile. Humans smile when they’re happy! Haru’s happy, too. He whirls away from the racks of fishing poles toward the counter and flops across it. 

“Mi _saki_ -chan! Kate made it for me, it wasn’t an _alien_ map!”

“Ah, my mistake,” says Misaki, gravely. 

“I’ve _got_ an alien map, but it’s for finding Earth, and I’ve found Earth now, so I need new maps! Aaaand a fishing pole! Misaki-chan! I’m taking a fishing pole from your shop, and everything for fishing, and a new map with a picture of where my school is!”

“Please,” says Misaki. 

“Umm… please?” 

“If you’d like somebody to do something for you, it’s polite to say please. And that way they’ll like you more!”

“Right!” He springs back upright from the counter, which is glass and full of little whorled seashells, and claps twice, rapidly. “Misaki-chan, I’m taking a fishing pole _please_!”

“I’ll see what I can do,” says Misaki, and when Haru exhales in blissful relief the shadows in the lure trays flicker in the light from his halo. “Did you have any particular brand in mind, alien-kun, or shall I just pick out a beginners’ model for you?”

“Eh, you’re _laughing_!”

“I wouldn’t dare laugh at an alien,” says Misaki, even more gravely than before. 

“You aaaaare, you are you _are_ , Misaki-chan! Tell me why!”

“Let’s find you a fishing pole, shall we?” 

Haru follows her into a bright little room behind the counter that smells like saltwater and fish, hopping impatiently from foot to foot as she inspects the grimier, used-looking fishing poles propped up around the walls. “Misaki-nee! I want to know! Tell me! _Misaki_ -nee! Te-e-ell me-e-e!” 

“Oh, hush,” says Misaki, eventually, “I was laughing because I _like_ you,” and she unhooks a fishing pole that looks exactly like every other fishing pole in the shop but is probably the best one, and the one that catches most fish, and almost _definitely_ the nicest! It’s got worn red stripes all the way down the body and Haru clutches onto it with both hands and a cry of excitement, shakes it so the long bendy tip waggles back and forth, waves it toward Misaki and laughs in delight. “You can borrow it till the weekend, but I’ll want it back after that. Okay, alien-kun?”

“Mmmm- _hm_!”

“And you want to get to Koshigoe Eastern High?”

“Yeah! I want a map for it!”

“Well, you’re going to want to take the train –” 

“– I know about trains! –”

“– onto the mainland,” says Misaki, and, “You’re going to be an _expert_ on Earth, at this rate,” she adds, smiling her lovely human smile. 

“I just wanna be an expert at fishing!” says Haru, and enthusiastically he drums the butt of his beloved new fishing pole on the smooth shop floor. 

 

\---

 

Getting the train with Coco was fun, but it’s even more fun when it’s just Haru – no Coco there to sigh her fishy sigh and pester him with thoughts about calming down, or being sensible, or sitting still, or anything dull like that at _all_! He makes up a new version of the Enoshima song with the _chud_ -a-chud-a-chud of the train’s trundling wheels as a beat and persuades his whole carriage to join in, dancing their way to the mainland, their wonderful colourful Earth clothes dripping. His water gun’s almost empty again, but there’ll be sinks at school, no problem. School! – at _school_! Yuki’s at school! 

Haru waves goodbye to his new train friends and leaps down to the platform and runs, all the way up the gritty seaside path marked on Misaki’s map and the sandy sidewalks to the school, and its doors bang back against the walls of the wide airy foyer when he hurls himself triumphantly through them. 

 

\---

 

Every time Haru starts to have difficulty concentrating he twists round in his chair (chairs are for sitting on!) and beams at Yuki instead, till he looks up from his classwork (classwork means writing on paper!) toward him. Mostly Yuki reacts to this by flinching, and cringing away, and writing with one hand above his eyes to shield Haru from his limited range of human vision, but Haru just props his elbow on the back of his seat and smiles at Yuki till he can’t help but look up again, and flinch away again, and keep on looking up again. His hair is _so_ red, and so bright, and so fluffy, and what does Coco know, anyway? Yuki probably _loves_ fish! 

“If you pay half as much attention to your work as you do to Sanada,” the teacher tells Haru, passing by their desks as one class finishes and another begins, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re top of the class by Friday.”

“Yuki’s my favourite!” Haru announces. Yuki covers his face with his hands and makes a noise like a punctured beachball. “Ehh, what’s wrong? Yuki? Yu _kiiiii_?”

“I don’t even know you,” he mumbles. 

“I’m Haru!” says Haru. “I’m an alien! I already told everyone that, Yuki, don’t be stupid!”

Yuki’s hunched down in his chair, glowering at his desk. 

“ _Yuki_ ,” says Haru, insistently, and Yuki sinks down lower. He doesn’t talk much, Yuki, but that’s okay! Haru gives his arm a pat and Yuki jerks it back across his desk away from him, so Haru blows a raspberry and turns back round, to face the teacher, who is looking at him with his furry human eyebrows raised and his arms crossed across him. “Sorry!” he says gaily. “Sorry sorry!”

Class goes on. Outside the window the sea is bright and sunny and shining all over, and Haru – fishing pole propped up between his desk and the wall, rattling every time he crosses his legs or uncrosses his legs or folds his legs or tries to kneel on his chair or experiments with just how far onto the desk he can clamber before the teacher spots him and shoos him back – Haru sits and watches the water, bright little chips of light glittering out as far as he can see, and as far as he can imagine, as well. He doesn’t know what lunchtime is but the moment it’s announced all the humans start shoving their desks around, so he shoves his backward into Yuki’s and scoots his chair in after him. 

Yuki’s human lungs are extracting oxygen from the air with a sort of panicked wheezing sound. 

“You’re breathing funny,” says Haru, but when he tries to feel Yuki’s neck in case he’s got a problem with his human gills Yuki’s face turns red ( _such_ a nice red!), and he kicks back his chair and flees from the classroom. Haru grabs his fishing pole and chases, all the way down the corridor and down the stairs, past a long low row of shelves stacked with outdoor shoes and out a propped-back glass door into a small quiet courtyard, where Yuki looks frantically round for an escape and finds none. “Yuki!”

Yuki doesn’t look happy. No problem! Haru can be happy for the both of them, till Yuki’s ready to cheer back up. 

“Yuki, let’s go fishing!”

There’s one skinny little tree set into the stone ground. It doesn’t have flowers but it does have leaves, rustling and whispering, and there’s a bench beside it. Yuki slumps down. “I don’t want to.”

“You talk so _quiet_ ,” says Haru, and bounds after him. “After school! That’s when we’re gonna go fishing!”

“Thank you,” Yuki mumbles, “but no.”

“Fish fish _fishing_! I’ve –” Yuki’s hair is _just_ as fluffy as it looks! “– been looking –”

“– _hey_!”

“– forward to it ever –”

“– s _top_ that!”

“– since I came to Earth!” He beams at Yuki, who’s back on his feet and smoothing down his ruffled hair, staring at Haru across the courtyard with a look of red-faced outrage. “You’re the best, Yuki! You can get a fishing pole even nicer than _my_ one, if you like! Straight after school, okay?”

“No,” says Yuki, and he ducks his head and with his shoulders all hunched up he starts to make his hurried way back into school. 

“ _Yuki_ ,” Haru says, reproachfully, but he can’t even hold his reproachful look for half a moment before he collapses into laughter, punches the air with the hand that’s not clutching his tall stripy Earth fishing pole to him, bounces after Yuki back through the bright winding corridors. “Yuki, Yuki, Yuki! _Do_ you like fish?” 

Yuki keeps glancing back with a harried sort of look. Haru’s scuffing the tip of his fishing pole all across the ceiling, still burbling with laughter. 

“I think you probably like fish, you _ought_ to! _Yuki_! We’re gonna catch soooo many fish!” 

Yuki’s stomping up the stairs. Haru keeps on bouncing. 

“You’re so cool when you’re not making silly faces! Yuki! I believe in you, Yuki! Earth is great, it’s _so_ great!”

“It’s all right,” mutters Yuki, and prises Haru’s arms from where he’s launched himself and flung them suddenly, excitedly round Yuki’s shoulders, fishing pole thwacking awkwardly across Yuki’s front. “I mean. I guess.”

“You – guess – _right_! I can’t wait can’t wait can’t _wait_ to save it!” says Haru, and he barges their classroom door enthusiastically open with the butt of his wonderful brand new fishing pole.


End file.
